How to manage for mature bucks Part 4

[8 POINTS OR BETTER]

Here is a link.

I think this is one of the most over looked parts of deer management, and having healthly bucks at older ages.

http://www.growingdeer.tv/view/2012/02/ ... ks-part-4/

 

[BSK]

Adult sex ratio is a complex issue. You want it close enough to reduce rut stress on bucks and to promote competition that drives daylight rutting activity, but the amount of doe harvest required to get very balanced sex ratios often drives does so nocturnal that hunters see few deer at all. It's a real balancing act. I used to push clients and others to shoot for a balanced ratio or at worst around 1.2 or 1.3 does per buck. But now I suggest a ratio around 1.5 does per buck. That is enough to foster competition between bucks but doesn't require as much doe harvesting, hence does are still active during daylight, which makes hunters happier.

 

[fairchaser]

Adult sex ratio is a complex issue.

I am just curious how the numbers work? When you kill 15% of the population in does and 2% of the buck population every year for many, many years; but somehow the ratios stay around 1.5 to 1. Is this because does live longer than bucks and hunter killed deer are only a small percentage of the equation?

 

[BSK]

Adult sex ratio is a complex issue.

I am just curious how the numbers work? When you kill 15% of the population in does and 2% of the buck population every year for many, many years; but somehow the ratios stay around 1.5 to 1. Is this because does live longer than bucks and hunter killed deer are only a small percentage of the equation?

I think the answer is twofold: hunter-managers working with relatively small properties, and deer are far more mobile over their lifetimes than was orginally thought.

Even when working with a perfectly square square-mile of land (640 acres), that area probably doesn't contain the entire home range of a single buck, and only few does. Deer wander from property to property where they encounter vast differences in hunting pressure and mortality factors. Keeping track of "who lived and who didn't" during hunting season can be very difficult. All we know is what happened on our land.

As more and more GPS and photo census studies have been conducted, it is becoming more apparant that deer, and especially bucks, have much less fidelity to home ranges from year to year than originally thought. It never ceases to amaze me how mobile some GPS-collared older bucks have proven to be. In addition, many who have conducted photo-censuses for years can tell you that although they can pick out individual bucks that stay around or show up on a given property year after year, in the majority of cases, the percent of bucks that can be tracked year after year is fairly low. On my place, only about 30% of 3 1/2 year-old bucks used my property as 2 1/2s the previous year. And I'll bet if we could ear-tag yearling bucks, a very low percentage would be the 2 1/2s we have the following year.

 

[fairchaser]

As more and more GPS and photo census studies have been conducted, it is becoming more apparant that deer, and especially bucks, have much less fidelity to home ranges from year to year than originally thought. It never ceases to amaze me how mobile some GPS-collared older bucks have proven to be.

As an example of this; I killed a buck this past season that was shot in the leg by another hunter. The buck was nearly 2 miles away from where he was originally shot about a week earlier.

 

[8 POINTS OR BETTER]

As more and more GPS and photo census studies have been conducted, it is becoming more apparant that deer, and especially bucks, have much less fidelity to home ranges from year to year than originally thought. It never ceases to amaze me how mobile some GPS-collared older bucks have proven to be.

As an example of this; I killed a buck this past season that was shot in the leg by another hunter. The buck was nearly 2 miles away from where he was originally shot about a week earlier.

From what I've seen with our cameras and from what we've killed in the last few years is after a buck reaches 3.5, we stand a very good chance of the buck not range shifting.